Aliens Are Coming to Kill Us. Yes, Even You. Especially You.

I’m not sure why that is, because I hate horror movies (yes, we’re going to talk about this, again). Aliens are weird looking, overpowering, and, more often than not, are here to kill us in amazingly extravagant ways. It’s basically a horror movie where the threat comes from the black of space and not the dark of a basement.

A lot of it might be the mentality that we, and by we, I, of course, mean red-blooded Americans, can withstand anything and come out okay. We as a nation were born of it. We told the biggest, most powerful, most influential empire to go screw, and then fought and outlasted them to forge our own nation.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Which makes it equal parts funny and sad at how spectacularly we lose our shit when someone else tries that on our watch.

This is me digressing. This is me digressing.

So yes, there’s the idea that we can take on the biggest and baddest and walk away winners. Humanity’s senses are stunted and under-developed. We have no actual natural defenses. Yet we are the apex predators on a planet teeming with bears, killer bees, tigers, and every terrible thing in the fucking ocean, because we are clever, vicious, and the last creature you want to see when their back is to the wall.

That’s another part of it, to watch humanity dig deep, remember who we are and what we’ve done, and kick a bunch of ugly motherfuckers off our planet.

Earth! Earth! Earth! Earth! Earth! Earth!

And, if I’m being honest, I like the idea of humanity getting it’s shit together to unite and face a common threat. It’d be a more beautiful sentiment if there was ever actually a scenario where humanity would unite that didn’t involve total annihilation, but I’ll take what I can get.

There are two movies coming out concerning humanity’s encounter with aliens: Cowboys and Aliens and Battle Los Angeles.

Daniel Craig's butt. For the ladies. And a few of the dudes. Whatevs, it's 2010.

Cowboys and Aliens is interesting as it looks to be a western shot in the John Ford style with Sergio Leone’s approach to violent men. Lush, rich colors and lived in, but not worn sets build the world, while Daniel Craig’s character plays a man of few words who dispatches threats efficiently. No speeches, comments, or introspection, if you mess with the bull, you get the horns.

I mean, here’s how the trailer opens: wakes up, sits up, stands up, stabs a man in the dick.

It sets a tone.

Battle Los Angeles on the other hand, veers from the classic reveal of a fully realized world turned upside down and instead gives us the JJ Abrams approach to trailers. There are no specifics other than shit goes bad, the military comes in, shit goes bad for the military.

Cowboys and Aliens gives us a man with no memory but a past. Harrison Ford is someone, probably a criminal, used to getting his way and threatening to kill everyone to get Daniel Craig.These are all people with a history that have their lives interrupted by spaceships that Daniel Craig has to blow out of the sky with his sweet wrist gun.

Battle Los Angeles on the other hand creates a feeling of tension by being brief and sparing. That civilian running away from the explosion could be you. The Marines going into combat know just as much as you do. By not being specific, the trailer becomes personal. It’s a horrible event made even scarier because it doesn’t care about you. You’re detritus. You are a crumb that gets caught in the catastrophe.

The crazy alien cyborg children’s choir music does not help.

I’m excited for both, obviously, but I think Cowboys and Aliens might be the most interesting. Granted I’ve been waiting for military versus aliens, and actual military, not rag-tag military, since Aliens, but the thing about the Old West is, everyone knows how to use a gun. Men, women, children, everyone knows what to do with a firearm. People would be less shy and shocked by death because they’ve probably killed a cow, or a chicken, or a deer, or a coyote, or watched someone get gunned down in the street, or hung after a trial, and thus the dynamic changes. While more overwhelmed by the idea of extra-terrestrial life and exotic technology, this can be overcome quickly by a more pronounced and better explored fight-or-flight response.

In the end, it’s going to come down to one thing: which chiseled, well-chinned, blond Adonis do you want saving you, Aaron Eckhart or Daniel Craig?

This isn't commentary or my choice, but we already had two pictures of Craig, you know?